2020-12-29

"When you said that just now, did it sound stupid to you?"

The City of Calgary is planning an "austerity budget" in 2021. Sure it's closing the door once the horses bolted, but it's at least reflecting a tiny amount of rationality. For the far-left idiots and child molesting faggot mayor who make up Calgary City Council, that's the best you can hope for.

But something about the concerns caught my eye:

He has seen a preview of the adjustments and said 2021 will be the fifth consecutive year where spending will lag behind the rate of inflation plus population growth.

You see this complaint a lot: "we aren't keeping up with the population growth". But when you stop and think about it, it makes no sense. After all, those new people moving in should increase tax revenue without any tax rate increase. At least Faggot Nenshi here is talking about spending only, but that's not usually the case. And regardless spending should be able to lag behind population growth: the whole point of larger cities is supposed to be the economics of volume you gain from all those extra people. 110 people can fund the new community centre more easily than 100 people, even if the 110 people are building a 10% larger centre.

Inflation also doesn't work as an excuse: if the tax rate is 5% than 5% of $1000 in 1990 (fifty 1990 dollars) is functionally the same as 5% of $1000 in 2018 (fifty 2018 dollars).

Under this logic, newcomers to our cities should be forbidden

In Edmonton's case, spending doubled over a decade where the population only increased by 50%. The empty claim made by Andrew Knack and others that this justified a 70% property tax increase is ludicrous. To make that argument is to claim that every newcomer to the city is a net drain on taxpayers...in other words, the citizens of Edmonton or Calgary are better off if we ban all newcomers. No new housing should be built and no single-family dwellings should be replaced with multi-family dwellings. That means that our spending can be held firm, the tax rate can be held firm, and everything will work out in the end.

If that's their contention, they need to be called out on it. Leftist city councils tend to be economic retards: their education cannot come fast enough.

For those wondering where the quote is from